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THIS book, which now leaves our hands, concentrates in a small compass -the results of very considerable labour, and the diligent study of very many books in languages living and dead. it purports to be a history (for the first time treated seriously in English) of the famous Order of the 'Rose-Cross', or of the 'Rosicrucians'. No student of the occult philosophy need, however, fear that we shall not most carefully keep guard--standing sentry (so to speak) not only over this, which is, by far, the pre-eminent, but also over ... More >>>

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THIS book, which now leaves our hands, concentrates in a small compass -the results of very considerable labour, and the diligent study of very many books in languages living and dead. it purports to be a history (for the first time treated seriously in English) of the famous Order of the 'Rose-Cross', or of the 'Rosicrucians'. No student of the occult philosophy need, however, fear that we shall not most carefully keep guard--standing sentry (so to speak) not only over this, which is, by far, the pre-eminent, but also over those other recondite systems which are connected with the illustrious Rosicrucians.

An accomplished author of our own period has remarked that 'He who deals in the secrets of magic, or in the secrets of the human mind, is too often looked upon with jealous eyes by the world, which is no great conjuror.'

How is it that, after centuries of doubt or denial--how happens it, in face of the reason that can make nothing of it, the common sense that rejects, and the science which can demonstrate it as impossible, the supernatural still has such vital hold in the human--not to say in the modern--mind? How happens it that the most terrible fear is the fear of the invisible?--this, too, when we are on all hands assured that the visible alone is that which we have to dread! The ordinary reason exhorts us to dismiss our fears. That thing 'magic', that superstition 'miracle', is now banished wholly from the beliefs of this clear-seeing, educated age. 'Miracle', we are told, never had a place in the world--only in men's delusions. It is nothing more than a fancy. It never was anything more than a superstition arising from ignorance.

What is fear? It is a shrinking from possible harm, either to the body, or to that thing which we denominate the mind that is in us. The body shrinks with instinctive nervous alarm, like the sensitive leaf, when its easy, comfortable exercise or sensations are disturbed.

Our book, inasmuch as it deals--or professes to deal--seriously with strange things and with deep mysteries, needs the means of interpretation in the full attention of the reader: otherwise, little will be made, or can come, of it. It is, in brief, a history of the alchemical philosophers, written with a serious explanatory purpose, and for the first time impartially stated since the days of James. the First and Charles the First. This is really what the book pretends to be--and nothing more. It should be mentioned that the peculiar views and deductions to be found herein were hinted at as demonstrable for the first time by the same Author in the year 1858, when a work entitled Curious Things of the Outside World was produced.

Let it be understood, however, that the Author distinctly excepts against being in any manner identified with all the opinions religious or otherwise, which are to be found in this book. Some of them are, indeed, most extraordinary but, in order to do full justice to the speculations of the Hermetic Brethren, he has put forward their ideas with as much of their original- force as he was able and, in some parts of his book, he believes he has urged them with such apparent warmth, that they, will very likely seem to have been his own most urgent convictions. As far as he can. succeed in being so considered, the Author wishes to be regarded simply as the Historian of, the Rosicrucians, or as an Essayist on their strange, mysterious beliefs.

Whether he will succeed in engaging the attention of modern readers to a consideration of this time-honoured philosophy remains to be seen but this he is assured of, that the admiration of all students and reflective minds will be excited by the unrivalled powers of thinking of the Rosicrucians. The application, proper or otherwise, of these powers is a matter altogether beside the present inquiry.

The Author has chiefly chosen for exposition the Latin writings of the great English Rosicrucian, Robert Flood, or Fludd (Robertus de Fluctibus), who lived in the times of James the First and Charles the First.

About Author:

Hargrave Jennings (1817-1890) was a British Freemason, Cleric, Rosicrucian, author on occultism and esotericism, and amateur student of comparative religion. played an important role in the development of Western interest in sex magic during the Victorian era.

In several voluminous works, Jennings developed the theory that the origin of all religion is to be sought in phallic worship of the Sun and fire, which he properly called "phallism."

In addition to the works to which he affixed his own name, Jennings is thought by some researchers to have written a number of anonymous volumes in the privately printed "Nature Worship and Mystical Series" series, and possibly also to have written under the pseudonym "Sha Rocco."

As Jennings made clear in several of his books, he used the word "phallic" in its non-gendered sense, meaning "having to do with the sexual organs"; thus he included worship of the female genitalia under the heading of "phallic." In later editions he reluctantly acceded to popular (although incorrect) usage and called his subject "phallicism."

Jennings seems to have become a member of some branch of the Rosicrucian Order around 1860 e.v. (possibly at the hand of Kenneth R. H. McKenzie), and appears to have initiated Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825-1875) into the same Order. Randolph was a noted medium, healer, occultist and author of his day, and counted among his other personal friends Abraham Lincoln, Kenneth R. H. McKenzie, Eliphas Levi, Napoleon III, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and General Ethan Allen Hitchcock. Randolph later founded one of the more well-known branches of the Rosicrucian Order in America. Randolph's Order claimed descent from the Rosicrucian Order (by charter of the "Supreme Grand Lodge of France"), and taught spiritual healing, western occultism and principals of race regeneration through the spirtualization of sex. Randolph referred to Jennings as "the chief Rosicrucian of all England," and quoted extensively from Jennings's works.

Jennings also served as one of the mentors of Peter Davidson (1842-1916), frontal chief of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor (H.B. of L.) The Hermetic Brotherhood was a mystical society which surfaced publicly in England in 1884 under the auspices of Max Theon (AKA Louis-Maximilian Bimstein, 1850-1927). The origins of the H.B. of L. are unclear, but there is some evidence linking it with the Brotherhood of Luxor, which was involved in the founding of the Theosophical Society; with the 18th century German Rosicrucian splinter group known as the Fratres Lucis; and with the latter's 19th century English spiritualist namesake. Born in Poland, Theon travelled widely in his youth. In Cairo, he became a student of a Coptic magician named Paulos Metamon. According to Davidson, he came to England in 1870, where he and Davidson established an "Outer Circle" of the H.B. of L. They were joined in 1883 by Thomas H. Burgoyne (AKA Thomas Dalton, 1855-1895), who later wrote a book summarizing the basic teachings of the H.B. of L., titled The Light of Egypt. The function of this "Outer Circle" of the H.B. of L. was to offer a correspondence course on practical occultism; which set it apart from the Theosophical Society. Its curriculum included a number of selections from the writings of Hargrave Jennings and P.B. Randolph.

Books by Hargrave Jennings

* "Indian Religions, or Results of the Mysterious Buddhism" (1858) * "Curious Things of the Outside World: Last Fire" (1861) * "The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries" (1870) * "Live Lights and Dead Lights" (1873) * "One of the Thirty, a Strange History" (1873) * "The Obelisk: Notices of the Origin, Purpose and History of Obelisks" (1877) * "Childishness and Brutality of the Time" (1883) * "Phallicism, Celestial and Terrestrial, Heathen and Christian" (1884) * "Charon: Sermons from the Styx: a Posthumous Work by Frederick the Great" (1886).